Pages

Friday, September 9, 2011

My huge green Cordyline fruticosa should have died this summer. I got fed up with it last winter -- no matter how far from all the other plants, no matter how careful I am to wash down the leaves when watering, no matter how cool and moist the environment, it still always gets spider mites, every winter, and I've gotten sick of dealing with them. So this spring, I put it outside.

The goal wasn't necessarily to kill it. I just wanted to get it away from the other plants, so the mites wouldn't spread. It had spent a summer outside before, so I figured it could handle it. On the other hand, there was something a little passive-aggressive about my method: I didn't try to gradually acclimate it to the new conditions. I just shoved it out there and let it fend for itself. Then I "forgot" to water it, even though we weren't getting very much rain. It responded the way you'd expect: first it sunburned, then it (partly) defoliated, and by mid-August I was ready to throw it out.

So we moved it to the back yard (there's a pile where we're dumping plant-related waste, soil, lawn clippings, etc. It's not quite a compost pile, because we're not trying to manage it like a compost pile, but we do expect it to break down into soil eventually.), but then for whatever reason it didn't get dumped. And since it was closer to the garden hose, it got watered when I thought of it.

(27 August 2011) Sorry about the shadows. I didn't realize the photo would turn out quite this crappily.

And then the damn plant started to grow new shoots from its base. Apparently it had been living off the stored water and starch in the swollen rhizome at its base all summer because I wasn't watering it properly. Then we got some rain besides, so suddenly it's ready to grow again.

(5 September 2011)

And I guess it'll get the chance. I get frustrated with C. fruticosa because of the spider mites (I gave up on the other Cordylines at the end of June), but I really like it otherwise, and if it's just the one plant, and it's growing lots of new stems at once . . . well, I'm not made of stone. I've cut back the old stems, and the Cordyline can stay for another year, as long as it behaves itself. No doubt I'll regret this decision next February, but it's not like I have to kill it now or I forever lose the chance, right?

I've also brought out both my 'Kiwi' (dehydrated) and 'Mambo' (spider mites) not expecting them to survive. The cut-back Kiwi has two shoots now. The Mambo did sunburn as expected but continued to produce leaves. I'm planning to restart both in LECA while it's still warm hoping the wetter medium will discourage mites.

For the mealy bugs and other problems in the wonderful world of gesneriads, we use a systemic, called Marathon. Perhaps there is a spider mite systemic out there that you could apply now that the growth is new. I would put on a bit more than the instructions say, and water it in well. Reapply in a month or two. Perhaps you will have then eradicated them. Whenever I transplant or make cuttings I use the systemic and have NO more pests. Might that work for you here?

The pesticide in Marathon (imidacloprid) doesn't work against spider mites, and I'm not aware of any systemics that do. I could spray routinely with neem oil, which is effective against spider mites, except that C. fruticosa is very sensitive to all horticultural oils (leaf shiner, neem, certain other "natural" anti-mite products). In the past, whenever I've sprayed a C. fruticosa with neem, it's responded by dropping a substantial percentage of its leaves. So pre-emptive spraying can't work in this case.

Since I'm always bringing in new plants, which are pre-infested with mites often enough to keep a small but stable mite population in the house year-round, really it's probably easiest to just not try to grow plants that mites find especially appealing. I've already given up on Hedera helix, Codiaeum variegatum, Alocasia/Colocasia, Brugmansia/Datura, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, and Dracaena thalioides. If I weren't so fond of C. fruticosa, I would have given up on it already too.

No wonder it grew back! The Good Luck Palm is known for it's survivability, otherwise it wouldn't have made jungles in the islands. :)

You know, when I planted one in my garden I didn't know about how useful this tree is - I only took it for a decoration plant. Then my aunt (who had visited Hawaii) saw it, and and went like "So you want to knit hula skirts now?" She always thinks one must do something for a purpose. Anyway, I took it a funny jibe first, but then dug in the net and found out that actually this is the plant whose leaves were used in making the original hula skirts! Also, the natives of Polynesia used various portions of this plant for medicinal purposes. Even the roots were used for surfing in Hawaii, I don't know how.

Tip jar:

Just so you know:

Infrequently Asked Questions

Have questions about PATSP? See the Infrequently Asked Questions post, or ask directly by e-mail. To e-mail, remove the two "d"s from the below address:

mrsubdjunctive@doutlook.com

Please note: I am a person, not a houseplant-care-advice vending machine. If you've asked a plant-care question and I responded, that took me time and effort to do that I could have spent on something else, and it's nice if you acknowledge that with a "thank you." (Even nicer: a small amount of money in the tip jar. Though don't feel obligated.)

Also: no, I will not help you draw attention to your Kickstarter. No, I do not need the services of a blog-ads optimizer. No, I'm not interested in promoting/reviewing/giving away your products. Fuck, no, I will not write for free for your blog. I know these things are important to you, and you feel that your case is so special that I would obviously make an exception to the rule if you asked me because of how special your thing is, but I assure you: it is not special, and I will not make an exception.

Licensing

Photos on this blog attributed to mr_subjunctive are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. All other photos retain the licensing preferences of their owners and require permission for reuse. Contact mr_subjunctive for help in locating the sources for other photos.
Text on this blog: all rights reserved. Text may not be duplicated by any means without permission of its author, who is actually pretty easygoing under most circumstances and will probably say okey-dokey if you ask to reproduce something (but you still have to ask, and credit mr_subjunctive as the author of the excerpted part).

Ass-covering legal disclaimer that should really be perfectly obvious to anybody reading this anyway

The thoughts, opinions, life choices, etc. discussed in this blog are those of its author, and are not necessarily endorsed by his former employer, nor were they ever necessarily endorsed by his former employer before she was former. In fact, I'm pretty sure we disagreed about a lot of stuff, which was additional incentive not to discuss anything that didn't relate pretty directly to plants. And as far as it goes, we disagreed about a fair amount of stuff directly relating to plants, too.

In any case. Nothing in this blog should be taken to represent my former employer's views on anything, except for the few things explicitly identified as her opinions, and even then it's possible I've misunderstood or exaggerated what her actual views were. So if you want to know what she thinks about stuff you should just ask her.